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It's no coincidence that one of the first tracks on Body Talk is "Fembot," a song that comments on the recent vogue of pop starlets re-imagining themselves as cyborg provocateurs -- not by rejecting objectification, but by turning the whole metaphor on its head by overemphasizing it.

Taking stock of some of the top releases thus far (Al Green learns to Lay It Down), flops (Trina is not Still Da Baddest), and annoyances (Mariah Carey — nobody but Nick Cannon even cares anymore), here's a look at some of 2008's most talked-about albums.

People on this side of the pond are finally catching on to the reinvented Swedish future-pop darling; her latest album is getting a proper release here after much hype and blog love from the likes of Perez Hilton and hipster music sites like Pitchforkmedia.

More by Tom Lanham

On the cover of her new 14th set, Unrepentant Geraldines, adventurous singer-songwriter-keyboardist Tori Amos is standing before a wall-size mural, a paintbrush clutched in her right hand, as if she's just put the finishing strokes on her latest primary-colored masterpiece. But don't read it too literally, she cautions...

Success comes with consequences, and one of them is contempt. As the South by Southwest music festival's attendance has risen — from just 700 in 1987 to nearly 30,000 in 2015 — so too has the volume of the critics and contrarians who've gone on to vilify what's become the world's largest music event.

On the cover of her new 14th set, Unrepentant Geraldines, adventurous singer-songwriter-keyboardist Tori Amos is standing before a wall-size mural, a paintbrush clutched in her right hand, as if she's just put the finishing strokes on her latest primary-colored masterpiece. But don't read it too literally, she cautions...